New 2+2 mainpage navbar is awful

[Sniper]

Chuck,

Here's my thoughts...

First, take the AD out of the menu.
Second, review how other popular sites structure their menus. Many of the largest sites have spent enourmous amounts of $$ to determine the best user interface, take advantage of their research.

[Slacker13]

I personally think a complete redesign is needed. The site is old and outdated. On the main page there is so much clutter that items that should be more noticeable arent being noticed.

I would list in priority what is most important that the viewer should see when first entering 2+2. I assume selling books, merchandise, classifieds and advertising is most important. So they should be in your face when you come to the site.

The forums should be seperate and have one single link to enter from. As it stands now you have a forum with shopping, IMO it should be shopping with a forum.

Here is a very very rough example, i only spent a few minutes but I cut info into one of my old websites that is why some of my old text is there. Keep in mind i spent 10 minutes on this but I think you get what I am trying to say and with the right design you can not only put a lot of emphasis on what your trying to sell but also everything else 2+2 has to offer.

But then agian, it's your site and I don't necesarily know exactly what is the most important for your business.



Taken from bargainranch.com my old website.

[Equal]

While I love the 2p2 guys, and think their poker books are the best by far in content, you guys have to understand these are the same guys that choose the covers for the books.

It was all clear to me when Mason had that cover contest for Miller's Getting Started book, and one forum member who was a graphic artist designed far and away the best covers. Everyone on the thread agreed that his covers were the best, but 2p2 decided on an alternate cover that was infitely worse (no offense to the designer).

I can only imginae the better book sales, and site hit if 2p2 left the design of book covers and their web site look to REAL professionals.

[spamuell]

If you need an ad on the left and several on the right then so be it. However, it's extremely annoying to have the width so restricted for the whole length of a thread (if you're viewing in flat mode) when it's just a few links and a couple of ads at the top which are causing this.

I agree with the suggestion of redesiging around other top sites which have ads.

[Equal]

Slacker, great pic. What you posted is pretty much the standard now for professional sites, something along those lines... with a left sidebar, boxes for content, and the horizontal title box along the top.

[MicroBob]

Looks good to me Slacker.

I agree that it's silly to list ALL the forums on the home-page like is done here.
Just a single link to 'forums' or even 'the best gosh-darned poker-forums on the internet!!' would be fine and seems standard.


I agree also with the general sentiment that an overhaul would be best and that it might be best left to those who do this professionally. Because the site as it currently is just looks old, out-dated and kind of unprofessional imo.

[Transference]

I think part of the clutter problem comes from the lack of definition between links. The underline style actually makes it a bit easier to see the links as seperate entities even if it does mean more dark space. Even bullets or color variations would help, anything so that each series of links doesnt appear to be one big solid block of text. Even a bit more spacing would help tremendously.

Using a slightly heavier font for the non link headings would really help give the nav bar a cleaner look.

Blue on green is a terrible color combination and doesnt help anything, please consider using colors that contrast better.

If your using expandable menus, use a mouseover rather than click to open system. It is much easier and quicker to navigate. Keep the number of expandable options as few as possible. Finally enlarge the font size if you do this, precision mousework shouldnt be required for navigation.

[Snow]

Yeah i can see where Mason & David are coming from but what i find strange is that they fully understand why you shouldn't go pro in poker if you are an amateur... when the same reasoning goes for website design and information publishing on the internet.

In their defence i withold its impressive that this site has so many users/post (which proves that without good content and frequent updates a site is nothing)... but a combination of good structured navigation with a corporate and functional design altoghether the site would be a knockout

Regards
Snow